This year’s Virginia team is going to be dramatically better than last year’s team, which spent half the season ranked in the Top 10, was ranked as high as #2, and shared the ACC regular-season title with Miami, which went on to the Final Four.

The 2023-2024 preseason AP Top 25 is out today. Virginia isn’t in it.

Duke, of course, is, at #2, with Miami, which lost ACC Player of the Year Isaiah Wong, is #13, and North Carolina, which didn’t even make the NCAA Tournament a year ago, and lost its leading scorer, Caleb Love, to the transfer portal, is at #19.

Is what it is.